Town-planning literature has recently been enriched by an impressive series of monographic studies on a multitude of cities all over the world, among them the ‘capitals’, obviously, attracted the most attention. Rome was also object - maybe more than the others - of a great amount of historic and analytic studies, with which the possibilities of interpreting the town-planning development of cities have been increased.
This book is the product of a complex, theoretical discourse on planning and its relations to urban analyses (to which Prof. Archibugi has dedicated a not marginal attention in the course of his life as a scholar). And - in conclusion - after a widespread critical view on more than a century’s urban activity as regards Rome and its town-planning schemes, the result is a proposal for a new, updated planning strategy for Rome. The book, in his analytical and historical part, has limited itself to only a few essential arguments and characteristics connected to the suggested strategies for the development, or to criticism of the mistakes made by the ‘town-planners’ in the past or by the town-planning discourses which are going round. Nevertheless, this proof, when speaking of Rome and its history with its town-planning problems, expresses also a vision of a ‘town-planning problem of big cities’ which goes beyond that of Rome and regards that of the whole modern town-planning.
CONTENTS
Editor's Introduction Preface to the English Edition Preface to the 1994 Edition Chapter 1 The Peculiarity of the Rome Problem 1. Rome's Historic Centre: Breadth and Survival 2. Rome: A "Post Neo-Classical" Development Chapter 2 An Insufficient and Inadequate Strategic Response to the Rome Problem 1. "Umbertine" Town Planning 2. Fascist Town Planning 3. Post-War (or "Modern") Town Planning 4. "Popular" and "Ephemeral" Town Planning” 5. The Last Ten Years a) The “Continuity” of the Attached Personnel b) The Missed Renewal of Town Planning Culture Applied to the Administration c) The Trap of the Jubileum (of 2000) Chapter 3 The Socio-Economic Effects of an Absence of Planning Strategy1. Excessive Dispersion and Fictitious Decentralization of Activity 2. Obstacles to Economic-Commercial Development 3. An Erroneous Evaluation of Sectorial Development 4. The City Spill-Over 53 5. The Social Costs of the Scattered Tertiary Settlement 6. The Social-Economic Costs of the Unsuitability of the Structures 7. The Costs of the Habitational "Reflux" 8. The Socio-Economic Cost of "Second Homes" 9. Territorial Disintegration 10. The Paralysis of Traffic and Accessibility Chapter 4 Towards a New Planning Strategy 1. Monocentrality and Polycentrality 2. Monocentrism and Polycentrism in the Rome Urban Dynamic 3. Disguised Monocentrism and Fictitious (and Weak) Polycentrism
Chapter 6 Essential Instruments for the New Strategy 1. Planning at the Level of the (Metropolitan) "Urban System" 2. Financial Planning: A Factor of Plan Credibility Chapter 7 The New Master Plan of Rome: A Plan Without Strategy 1. Summary of the Past Master Plans 2.The Most Recent Debate on the New Master Plan 3. The New Master Plan 4. A New “Type” of Plan? 5. “Urban Plan” and “Strategic Plan”: A False Dichotomy 6. About the Absence of (Systematically Related) Explicit Objectives 7. Policies, Objectives, Instruments: Some Confusion 8. The New “Centralities”: A Misleading Application 9. Rules and Norms, Instead of Objectives 10. The Shortcoming of a (Structural) Reference to the Users of the Plan 11. The Absence of a Truly Integrated Land Use-Transport Approach 12. The Absence of an Adequate Territorial Strategy and its Effect on the Architectonic Policy and the Green Policy 13. The Overwhelming by Micro-Design 14. General Conclusions: Everything Can Be Improved Bibliographical Refererences |
Theory and Urban Politics
Abstract
This article presents the main themes in the theoretical debates taking place in urban political theory. The first debate is around the analysis of community power and its renewal through such theoretical approaches as growth machines and urban regime theory. The analysis of urban protest is a second debate and the author suggests that the renewal of this analysis should come through the investigation of third force organizations, neither private nor public. The third and final debate is that regarding the emergence of contextual theory, including approaches relating to globalization and regulation theory. The article concludes that urban political science has remained open to new theoretical approaches.
